News Shopper recently released 10 little-known facts about motorcycles to commemorate the anniversary of the first known motorcycle race, which was in 1897.

When motorcycles were first invented, it didn't take long before people started racing them. The first recorded race was over the distance of one mile. The winner, Charles Jarrot, had a blistering time of 2 minutes and 8 seconds on his Fournier motorcycle.

On to the facts:

1)The front tire provides 75 per cent of a bike’s grip when cornering.

2)The Vespa brand of scooter got its name from the Italian word for wasp.

3)As well as motorbikes, Kawasaki also makes spaceships. It only began making motorcycles in 1962 to publicise its ‘heavy industries’ which were unknown to the public.

4)Devil, Satan and Lucifer have all been brands of motorcycles.

5)The first motorcycle was the SH Roper 1869 steam cycle.

6)His character The Fonz may have been the epitome of cool but actor Henry Winkler couldn't actually ride a motorcycle.

7)When Valentino Rossi was five, his dad (a former motorbike racer himself) built him a go-kart as a substitute to biking out of concern for his son’s safety.

8)The TOTO motorcycle built in Japan in 2010 ran on human waste.

9)American Triumph dealer Bud Ekins did the now-famous 65ft motorcycle jump in The Great Escape (in one take), not Steve McQueen.

10)Between 1917 and 1923 macho American bike firm Harley-Davidson made mopeds. Meanwhile, Hell’s Angels founder Sonny Barger said in his autobiography he prefers Japanese bikes to Harleys.

Dods,
On number one...I'm not saying your wrong, but I feel the weight going to the rear wheel
when I hit the throttle at the apex of the turn. I could be totally wrong, it's just the
feel I get.

You're adding acceleration into the equation. The front tire does most of the work in braking and turning. In turning alone the rear tire is simply following while keeping the rear tire from kicking out. Holding the line, if you will. The front tire is keeping the front from kicking out, as well as changing the bike direction, which adds more forces than simply holding a line.

6)His character The Fonz may have been the epitome of cool but actor Henry Winkler couldn't actually ride a motorcycle.

Old thead I know,, but in the first 12 seconds of the shows introduction doesn't it looks like Fonzie is riding that bike? It doesn't look like a stunt driver(?) Or, do you mean Henry Winkler (aka Fonzie) didn't have a motorcycle license then? Heck that would make him even more badazz

I read that the bike was just given a good push and Winkler just coasted through that scene, as well as a few others where he appeared to be riding. He didn't have the coordination required to operate the controls of the bike. They tried teaching him several times, but he just couldn't do it.

I saw a few interviews with Henry Winkler in which he said he never learned how to ride a motorcycle. The only time he was ever feet-up on a bike was in the scene used in the opening credits of the show, where he rides up the street and makes a left turn into the Cunningham’s driveway. The part of that scene you don’t see is three stage hands giving him a running push-start holding the clutch in, then releasing it for him once he’s underway. At the end there are a dozen guys and several feet of foam padding to catch him before he hit the garage. Upon hearing this revelation, I was heartbroken. I grew up on Happy Days and thought The Fonz was the coolest thing to ever walk the earth (when I was ten). But he never learned to ride.
- The intro of the show they show a few seconds
- Season 2 Episode titled “Cruisin” they show him coasting for a few seconds
- Season 2 Episode 24 “Not with my sister you DON’T”
- Season 3 Episode 47 “Howard’s 45th Fiasco” they show Fonz leaving down the street
- Season 8 Opening credits